1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for punching the tuyeres of a converter which includes a plurality of punch rods that can be inserted into the tuyeres of a converter used to smelt mattes of copper or nickel so as to remove the solid deposits which form at the inner ends of the tuyeres.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to smelt mattes of copper or nickel, converters are used which generally have cylindrical configurations, such as the Peirce-Smith type converters, and mounted in a line along the sides of such converters are a plurality of spaced apart tuyeres which allow compressed air to be forced into the converters and to oxidize the iron and sulfur included in the molten materials therein (and thus smelt the materials). Since the forced air passing through the tuyeres is cold, solid deposits will be formed at the inner ends of the tuyeres where the cold air contacts the molten material inside the converters, and since blockage of these tuyeres is very detrimental to the functioning of the blowing operation, removal of the deposited materials is essential.
One known way of removing these deposits is to place individual punch rods in the tuyeres from the outside and to push manually a punch rod into and withdraw the same from the tuyeres in a "punching" operation so as to remove the deposits during the blowing of compressed air therethrough. However, this manual procedure is obviously very inefficient.
Various types of mechanical punchers have also been proposed to more efficiently remove the deposits from the insides of converter tuyeres. Various types of these punchers are shown in Canadian Pat. No. 727,540, issued on Feb. 8, 1966, Japanese Patent Publication No. 3503/30, published on May 25, 1955, and Japanese Patent Publication No. 7775/49, published on Feb. 24, 1974. One type of puncher involves the attachment of a punch rod to each individual tuyere. Another type of puncher includes a carrier frame which is mounted to move along the outside of the converter and has mounted thereon a single punch rod or a plurality of rods which can be inserted into the tuyeres. However, although this latter puncher is improved in function over the others, it too displays serious drawbacks insofar as a skilled worker must ride on the carrier frame and visually line up the punch rods with the respective tuyeres before the rods are punched into the tuyeres.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a punching apparatus which will include a plurality of parallel punch rods thereon that can be automatically and simultaneously reciprocated so as to be inserted into corresponding converter tuyeres and thus remove any solid deposits therein, and which will be automatically controlled so as to move along rails positioned adjacent the converter such that the punch rods will clean sequential sets of tuyeres as the punching apparatus travels from adjacent one end of the converter to the other, thereby cleaning all of the tuyeres during a cycle of punching apparatus operation.